Every freakin' holiday I have to go into the attic closet and drag out the appropriate boxes and bags corresponding to the time of year, drag them down the stairs, and put them up--with little or no assistance. (Perhaps this would go faster if some helped... or if they didn't send their asthmatic son into the dusty closet so his allergies can flare up.)
The closet's tiny--(yes, there's a room in the house smaller than the space I share with my brother)--and against the side of the house, so the roof is severely slanted on one side. So instead of conserving space we continue to get new crap without getting rid of anything that hasn't disintegrated into particles. (And then we try to glue the dust back together before we get rid of it.) Freakin' pack rats of sentimentality. (I get that way with my things too, but I have limits--I can throw things out... Of course my parents, on one of their whims, made me throw out things last summer--but the closet must stay!) I'm waiting for the time when everyone celebrates Festivus and I can just bring a metal pole out of the closet. (I'm still constructing a plan to have one set of universal wreaths for outside the house.)
But that's not what I came here to talk about. (I didn't want the title to mislead y'all if I stopped here.) Christmas is the worst time of year for closet activities (Dominik) because that holiday has the most crap. And because of the shape of the closet, everything has to be taken out to retrieve Christmas from the seventh circle. I call this The Shift. Everything gets carried down the stairs to the living room and most of it goes back up. My brother used to help me with this stuff, but he has a job now, so he works until evening hits then he drinks until morning.
So I'm doing it myself this year. (Again.) It'd be nice if I didn't have to put up the majority of the stuff that I take down. (Especially because I don't care.) My mother takes on little pet projects, like putting out a snow globe on the coffee table, but in the end it's still me climbing ladders to put up garland and lights on the roof. (And I really don't like heights.)
So you can imagine my shock and alarm when my sister, who was sitting on the couch not helping me bring boxes out of the closet, states that it is actually her who decorates the house, not me. Gee, I don't remember seeing you on the roof last year. (I would have considered pushing you off.) She's so busy with her Full-Time Job (for which she earns constant praise) and her boyfriend that I only see her a few hours a week. (Which is probably the nicest part of this blog entry.)
Point is, we don't have the same schedules like we used to when we were kids--my parents included. The past few years I've just been leaving the boxes out in the living room and we decorate the tree in shifts. (We're getting a punch card system this year.) Why bother?